Word On A Wing

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Got word that Postcards lost to Popgun Vol.1 for the "Best Anthology" Harvey, this weekend. Shame. Still great to be nominated, though. Here's the last page of "Send Louis His Underwear", mine and writer Matt Dembicki's contribution to that Eisner and Harvey nominated book, Postcards.

Two For The Show

Looks like I should have booked that trip to the Baltimore Con, after all. You see, the Harvey's are presented during the Baltimore Con and I just found out that POSTCARDS was given nominations in two categories! One for "SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION" and the other for "BEST ANTHOLOGY". Huge pat on the back goes out to Jason Rodriguez who now has the book in the running for the Best Anthology Harvey AND Eisner!

Here's what the "Best Anthology" nominations look like:

Flight Volume 4, edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Ballantine Books
Mome Volume 8, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books
Popgun Volume 1, edited by Joe Keatinge and Mark Andrew Smith, Image Books
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriquez, Villard
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, edited by John Clark, Gemstone

The Winner Takes It All

Wow. I'm in an Eisner nominated book! I'm sure it was my work on Matt Dembicki's story "Send Louis His Underwear" that got Postcards the nomination. (Insert rolling eyes smiley here). Here's the category we're nominated for and the competition we're up against:

Best Anthology
Best American Comics 2007, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore and Chris Ware (Houghton Mifflin)
5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)
Mome, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriguez (Villard)
24Seven, vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brandon (Image)

See all the nominations here.

Sinister Purpose

Here's what Bernie Gonzalez at Indie Pulp had to say about mine and Matt's contribution to POSTCARDS: True Stories That Never Happened :

Even as one of the shorter stories in the book, at five pages, “Send Louis His Underwear” imparts a sinister impression. Using a seemingly innocuous line from the postcard (that also supplies the short’s title), writer Matt Dembicki’s tale would make Hitchcock proud. And illustrator Jason Copland’s gorgeous atmospheric artwork flawlessly heightens the narrative’s morose tone.

Now that's what I'm talking about! You can read the whole review here.

Thank you for the kind words Bernie!

Life In The Fast Lane

I'm back from the San Diego Comic Con, tired but ready to get back to work on some pages.

The trip was pretty good. I met some great artists and writers and even got to do some signing (see image to the left) for people who bought the freshly printed anthology, POSTCARDS. I signed so many books that I was getting good at doing the little drawing of myself. Many thanks to Jason Rodriguez for giving me the chance to experience life in the fast lane!

I didn't do any pitching at the show. KILL ALL MONSTERS! is in the process of getting the first 5 pages coloured and as much as I like my black and white pages, it's going to be the colour pages that sell this book to a publisher. So it just didn't seem like the right timing for me to show it around to publishers. I did show the whole uncoloured book to a few artist friends who seemed to like what they saw.

I bought tons of comics. I drank tons of Stone's Smoked Porter. I met Frank Miller and got to tell him that "Ronin" was the book that made me want to draw comics. But, best of all, I saw some old friends and made some new ones.

Special thanks goes out to writer, editor and SDCC roommate, James Powell, who helped make what could have been a stressful 4 day event into a rewarding and fun filled social extravaganza. Even if he was constantly pointing out that I say "eh?" after every 4th sentence. Oh, well. At least I didn't say "hoser", eh?

Roam

The list of people to see and things to do while at this year's San Diego Comic Convention continues to grow. As does my anxiety. I'll mostly be roaming around looking for all those people and events, but I will be partaking in a book signing on the Friday. Here are the details:

Friday, July 27th. 5 – 6PM. Big signing at the Comic Relief booth (#1514-1523)! Come on by, pick up a copy of POSTCARDS, and get it signed by: Antony Johnston, Tom Beland, Ande Parks, Joseph Bergin III, Rick Spears, Rob G, Gia-Bao Tran, Matt Kindt, Jason Copland, and Jason Rodriguez!

Please drop by and say hello!

Anyways, wish me luck and I hope to have some great news and stories for when I get back!

Echoes

More pimping....

Jason Rodriguez, editor of the upcoming anthology POSTCARDS: TRUE STORIES THAT NEVER HAPPENED, is guest-blogging at Newsarama all this week. He's just posted a small conversation about my contribution, which is pretty interesting. I kinda sound like I know what I'm doing.... kinda.

POSTCARDS is published by Villard Books, a division of Random House, and will be on sale in June. You can pre-order a copy through your local comic store, order code APR074039, or you can get it from a bookstore with the ISBN 978-0345498502. (Or, of course, you can always buy it from Amazon.)

C.O.D.

Ok.

So there's this really cool anthology book called Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened that is in this month's Diamond Previews (order # APR074039).

Postcards is a collection of 16 stories inspired by used, antique postcards that the book's editor, Jason Rodriguez, has collected over the years. It features work by some of the top talents in comics today, including stories from Harvey Pekar and Matt Kindt, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos, and Rick Spears and Rob G. (You can get a complete list of stories, creators, and bios at the official website. Just click on "Stories & Creators.")

It is now available to preorder on Amazon, too.

It's a wonderful collection of sequentially illustrated stories that will have people talking about it for years to come. Please consider having a look around the official website and ordering a copy for yourself or anyone else that loves a great read.

Truly

It can now be made public! News of the publisher of Jason Rodriguez and Eximious Press’ Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened collection has been broken! Jason says:

My newest anthology project, Postcards, has been acquired by Villard, a division of the Random House Publishing Group. Postcards is a collection of 16 stories inspired by used, antique postcards I've collected over the years. The book should be hitting stores late June and features work from 30 different creators including Harvey Pekar, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos, Antony Johnston, and Josh Fialkov.

The release can be read here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=9554. I'd like to add that you can read more about the anthology at its website: http://www.postcardsanthology.com


Read the official press release here.

Oh yeah, I'm in it, too!

Stupid Questions

While we wait for the second issue of EMPTY CHAMBER to fall from the sky (news on that soon!), I thought I'd tell you a little bit about another project that will feature some of my artwork. It’s the black and white anthology called POSTCARDS, which will feature some of the best and brightest creators of the indie comic talent pool. People like Harvey Pekar, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos, Rick Spears, Rob G, Antony Johnson, Andre Parks, Joshua Hale Fialkov and my good friend, A. David Lewis.

So, you ask, how did I get to be included in such a high profile book? I’m not entirely sure. It could be that POSTCARDS’ head honcho, Jason Rodriguez was my editor for the WESTERN TALES OF TERROR story I illustrated for Hoarse & Buggy. Or, it could be that he’s the editor of Kill All Monsters!, my new book with writer/co-creator Michael May. But, more likely, it was just another one of Jason’s charitable acts.

Sometimes its better to just not ask questions.

As you can see by the image at the top of this post, I was teamed up with the very talented writer, Matt Dembicki. His script was quite a challenge, let me tell you what. It was a 5 pager that had many many panels to draw... with next to no text. It was a blast to do, actually. It really pushed me to make sure the panel-to-panel storytelling was solid. And, I also got the chance to try a slightly different drawing style, which was nice. Here a close up of a panel like the one that Jason used for the banner image above.
The book is slated for a Summer 2007 release, which is great timing for the San Diego Comic Con! More on that soon, too!